Notes for trust officers, private bankers and others concerned with estate and trust planning, from a Merrill Anderson Senior Editor and his retired mentor.

Monday, May 22, 2017

Stock Picking, Fifty Years Ago and Now

"Some facts will not come to us," reports this 1967 Merrill Anderson ad for U.S. Trust. "We hunt them out and bring them back – alive."

Today, stock pickers need not hit the road. The digital revolution offers access to zillions of facts in the form of big data, and quants use algorithms to massage the data and generate investment decisions.

"Prognosticators imagined a time when data-driven traders who live by algorithms rather than instincts would become the kings of Wall Street," The Wall Street Journal($) recalls. "That time has arrived." Quantitative hedge funds "are now responsible for 27% of all U.S. stock trades by investors, up from 14% in 2013,"